Tuesday, December 26, 2006

The Hooghly Ate Your Islands

... Lohachara and Bedford Islands: Then (1945+/-) and Now (Google Earth 12/06)

After reading Tim Blair's post, at timblair.net, of the misleading story published by the Independent about the global warmening disappearance of Lohachara (and Beford) Islands, I went looking for maps.

This picture below is a composite, flattened *.jpg of a *.psd consisting of US Army Map Service maps, Layers 1 and 2, via this page at the University of Texas map library and a screen capture of the same vinicity, Layer 3, using Google Earth.

Registration was performed using pushpins at coincidental latitudes and longitudes on the Google Earth image that matched the L/L on the Army maps. Size and orientation manipulation was necessary to effect the overlay.

Lohachara and Bedford Islands were outlined in red on Layer 4 and the Google Earth map was set at about 50% transparency.

Of course the jpg provided below has no layers, but the psd is available on request. I provide the jpg because many folks don't have the wherewithal to view it.

Click to Enlarge

Observations to which I direct you:-- Lohachara and Bedford Islands are gone as is most of Khasimara to the north of them.-- The Hooghly has moved to the east upstream of the islands in the time elapsed, putting the islands directly in the front of the path of the river's main channel (see how the eastern upstream bank has also eroded).-- There is an island on the opposite side of the channel from the L/B/K islands which has grown to the size of all three other islands in the time elapsed and another formed at about the point in the river's mouth across from where Bedford was, all in the same time that other islands in question have been 'comsumed by the sea'.

One note about the Google Earth satellite image. It has been doctored before it was included in GE to enhance the river's color (a portion of the coloring was not done and appears brownish). NASA has different images of the Delta which I think better portrays the reality of the Delta's turpid and sediment filled waters. One such image can be found here.

Whatever one may think of Global Warmening, the real story here is that there are some researchers who shouldn't be.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Not that they haven't said similar things before...

...but I really think that this video posted (left hand column, second down) on the Hamas website (Arabic verison only; it certainly isn't easily found on the English version of the website, at least I didn't find it) and prepared by the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' terrorist department, should be considered a declaration of war by Hamas against the United States. (ht: Captain's Quarters)

Mr. Morrissey is being too kind in his approach, in my opinion. The US should demand an immediate retraction, repudiation and apology by the leader of Hamas. If not we should reciprocate by declaring war on them, take action to destroy all wings of Hamas, militarily (a start tomorrow would not be too early), finish it up as quickly as possible, and let the rest of the Palestinians try again.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

My God, Andrew Sullivan is an ASS!

In the latter, he suggests Rumsfeld is no different, in his opinion, than Zarqawi. Then he puts on his moral supremicist hat to declare he is concerned our moral standing is in the gutter because he says so, reciprocity was the sole reason for the decisions for interrogation methods made early on in the war, and asserts that there's some cycle of barbarity being ridden in this war. Panties on the head = beheadings. Menstrual blood = beheadings. Waterboarding = beheadings. Etc. Etc. Etc. Of course there is somewhat of an equivalency here. Our guys do wrong, we bring them to justice; their guys do wrong, we bring them to justice. In his initial post, he was nice enough to ask us to pray for their rescue, but on finding out about what was mostly inevitable, not even a single sentence devoted to outrage at the terrorists actions. Just BLAME BUSH, as though beheadings, IEDs, VIEDs, and women and children shields were the result of our efforts at intelligence gathering which included having a woman show up in provocative clothing at an interrogation session. I wonder if he'd consider it a cycle if, when he insults my intelligence again, I cut off the worthless lout's head and then make a call for "EVEN!"

On the former post, Sullivan goes off half-cocked again, driveling on about how the President, is, of course, evil and sums it up with how "shallow, monstrous, weak, and petty" a man he is. But don't forget the contingent "if Ron Suskind's account is true" at the beginning. We've seen how reliable he is when he jumps at all sorts of conclusions based on wanting to be the first to interpret a story in the news. No doubt he will get his head handed to him, this time, again, self-inflicted, but we'll never see him put up the "Never mind." correction, because, you see, he has a bottomless barrel of reasons for having BDS.

I think TruthOut left out an ellipsis on that statement; maybe it was one of those fill in the blanks that accidently got edited out instead of filled in. I am pretty sure the statement they meant to issue was:

"Truthout of course published an article on May 13 which reported that Karl Rove had in fact already been indicted. Obviously there is a major contradiction between our version of the story and what was reported yesterday. As such, we are going to stand around with our heads up our asses because we are really feeling down on the Rove matter at this time. We defer instead to the nation’s leading publications."

I Was a Civic Minded British Immigrant Teenager ...

Via Hot Air (and several other sites) comes this story of how the Brits are giving civics lessons to immigrants using a teaching pack called "9/11: The Main Chance". It appears as though it is another typical lefty appeasement, multicultural understanding approach to ending British civilization as we knew it.

That's certainly one perspective and, outwardly, it does appear to be the case. But the flip side is that the Brits are a fiendishly clever lot and at their best when they're down. Remember, they have MI6, that super secret intelligence organization. It pulls the strings everywhere in British government, often without the lefty appeasment oriented government officials even seeing or feeling the strings. And they shoot people. And even when they don't, they get other law and order types to, which those law and order types then have to apologise for ... okay, sorry, I am getting carried away.

Anyway, this is an information war against the Islamists as much as it is a shooting war and the Brits don't like guns. What better way to get catch Hadji Dads and Hadji Brothers and Neighborhood Hadji Imams, than to mine the insider knowledge of poor little Hadji Boy who has to attend civics classes? They are the ones who sit idly by and not noticed during adult conversations of conspiracy, sometimes sitting on the top stair listening when they should be in bed, or sitting like a molehill amongst the mountains of men in the Mosque listening to the Imam's sermon. And they are most vulnerable to bragging and calling ideas their own when, in fact, they have only overhead the idea at the home or at the Mosque.

Overcome their teenage suspicious nature, tap into that desire for secret sharing and gossip spreading. Take hold of that urge to brag. Use them. "9/11: The Main Chance" could be a perfect tool.

... Tune in next year for "How I Turned In My Hadji Dad With a Worksheet."

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Wandering off the news reporting reservation ...

... Irwan Firdaus opens takes a shot at analysis and removes all doubt of his stupidity. (ht: LGF) In this report on Indonesian terrorist, faux cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, Firdaus relates two claims by Bashir and then qualifies them:

Bashir, who has never been linked to the execution, preparation or commission of terrorist attacks, was asked Thursday about families still suffering from the Bali blasts.

He said the attacks "were God's will" and that survivors should "convert to Islam" if they wanted to soothe their suffering.

He had the same message for Bush and Howard, whom he criticized for waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying converting was "the only way for them to save their souls."

Both ideas were crudely expressed, but are in line with basic Islamic _ and Christian _ teachings on personal redemption and God's omnipotence.

Just a reminder to Firdaus and others lacking in rudimentary commonsense, Christianity does not teach that you should convert to Islam.

Carbon Neutral Gore?

Tipper and I have switched to hybrid cars, installed clock thermostats, switched to compact fluorescent light bulbs, and we became carbon-neutral two years ago. That means after you reduce the greenhouse gas emissions as much as you can, you purchase offsets by reducing carbon dioxide elsewhere in the world.

And we're supposed to take his word for that? Here's some more questions for Al.

Which hybrid cars do you have?

Now that you have left the stone age and have clock thermostats, what are the settings for AC and heating when you are there during peak daily periods?

So you have compact fluorescent bulbs, but do you have presence sensors?

What's your averge monthly gas and electric bill, now, for the two of you? By the way, do you have more than one home?

Lastly and most importantly, how much did you give last year, and the year before, to charitible organizations having the mission of reducing CO2 sothat you can claim carbon neutrality?

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

One man's news organization freedom fighters ...

is another man's news organization terrorist's brown nose. I wonder if the 72 virgins are the attraction for Pinch and the boys. (ht: Cliff May @ The Corner)

May notes that "despair" is the go-to word right now. It is good that despair is being put out there for the terrorists to know what it is like to become one. Despair is good state of mind for a terrorist. We need more of it. All terrorists should be made to feel despair.

Despair is Great!

Update: Despair comes quickly north of the border. Whatever the Canucks are doing, keep up the good work. (via LGF)

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Defining hurricanes down, or ...

... How Alberto was blown out of proportion.

We were over at a friend's visiting who happens to have cable (we don't) and I caught Fox's Greta anchor the news from a Florida beach in her yellow raincoat and waiting, waiting, waiting ... I flipped to MSNBC and CNN to check if they were also experiencing Katrina Tremens and it was only a little less chronic, but every one, like the new stories I checked after returning home, were all breezily using the "verging" word.

I'll go out on a limb here because I doubt I'll get blown off of it and say this: AGNES. Until and unless it has that look, don't make me laugh at this reports of early hurricanes or tropical storms. Actually, Alberto might be better said to be the most earliest beneficial storm since 1968's Abby [June 1 to 13].